shot
pouch. For wadding he tore apart the front page of the uppermost copy of
the file of _Daily Republicans_ lying upon the shelf where he had placed
them less than half an hour before.

He rammed the charge home, with wadding between powder and shot, with
more wadding on top of the shot. He withdrew the ramrod and cast it
aside; he brought the hammer back to full cock and fixed a cap upon the
nipple. He stood the gun upright upon the floor and leaned forward, the
muzzle against his upper chest, the stock braced against the edge of a
crack in the planking. With the great toe of his bare right foot he
pressed the trigger.

Two natives, passing, heard the booming report and ran in to see what
had caused it. They quickly ran out again and brought white men. After
the body had been moved from where it had fallen but before the scanty
personal belongings of the dead man had been sealed up and before the
store had been put under lock and key, the white men made search about
the place for any farewell message, or lacking that, any physical
evidence that might furnish a possible explanation for the cause of the
suicide. They found neither message nor clew. In searching about one of
them came upon a tattered scrap of newspaper. Its burnt edges and its
general singed condition proved that it had been used for wadding. The
force of the discharge had blown it out, almost intact, to flutter off
into a corner.

Moved by a curiosity natural under the circumstances the finder
deciphered the smudged and blackened reading that he found upon the two
surfaces of the fragment. On one side appeared part of an advertisement
of a merchant tailor; on the other side he made out this, which he read
with a casual interest only:

"The Editor regrets exceedingly that in yesterday's issue he was
victimised and imposed upon to the extent of printing an erroneous and
entirely incorrect item, for which mistake we now hasten to make prompt
correction and due amends. Some person unknown, taking advantage of the
fact that yesterday was April the first, or All Fools' Day, telephoned
to our sanctum the information that Miss Hetty Stowe, the well-known
teacher, of near here, had been married yesterday morning at Rutland to
a Mr. Gabriel Eno, of Vergennes. Accepting the report in good faith,
this paper printed it in good faith, as an item of news. We now learn
that the entire story was untrue, being, not to mince words, a lie
manufactured out of the whol